This month we’ll look at some powerful features of Google Calendar, an update for IOS, and IOS 14 release.
Google Calendar is used by millions of people worldwide, and it continues to be
improved with more and more useful features. Here are several tips to make it work
harder for you. These tips apply primarily to the desktop/web version.
- Create Event (press the +Create button). The window that opens allows you to do the basics, name the event, add date, guests, etc. Press More Options to add guest and grant levels of permission to view things, invite others, or modify. Set you notifications/reminders according to you preferences. In the large “text” box at the bottom you can attach files, add a URL link, format text, etc.
- “Find Time” – this feature works only if you cohorts/invitees are using sharedGoogle Calendars. The system looks over the calendars of other and suggests times to meet.
- Location Service – this works well with integration with Google Maps. Type the location of your meeting and it should be found and when it’s time to go to the meeting you can used Google Maps to get routing. Very handy out of the office using your smart phone.
- Manage Notifications – set these to let you know in advance of the upcoming meeting based on your habits/preferences.
- Recurring Meetings – you can set the meeting/to do to repeat daily, weekly, the 3rd Wednesday (custom date) to fit your situation.
- Views of Calendar – just type a “1” for day view, “2” for week view, etc. Using this feature you don’t have to take your hands off the keyboard to change views. On your phone in Google Calendar use “schedule” view as it lists your events in an attractive list. The phone is just too small for most other views.
- Security – Use caution if you share your calendar. Anyone with full permission will be able to respond to invitations, create and edit events, and share your calendar with others. To share, open your calendar on the web version as you can’t do this on a mobile app. In you Google Calendar, open My Calendars and then hover over the one you want to share and you’ll see the three vertical dots, click on that and select Settings and Sharing. A new screen gives you multiple options. In the middle of the page you’ll see a checkbox to make the calendar public or just shared with Specific People. Careful if you make it public to the world. A caution comes up to remind you that anyone can see it.
Browsers
We all spend much of the day while on-line using a browser. As you know this is your entry portal to the web. They can easily be customized to support things that you do. Extensions are small “apps” that can be loaded onto a browser to perform specific functions such as: clipping a web page, logging on to a site with your credentials, etc. I suggest that you be familiar with two browsers, one as your main or daily use one and another that you can open when needed and used when your main browser does not play nicely with what you are trying to do. The most popular browsers include:
Edge (Microsoft) this has replaced Internet Explorer
Safari (Apple) the flagship for Apple
Firefox (Mozilla) Works better on some sites than others
Chrome (Google) Works better on some sites than others
Brave (Brave) A new entry in the market and seems focused on privacy In Settings or Preferences within the browser you can change your search engine to oneof the following popular ones: Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo and possibly other lesser known ones. You know that if you use Google and search for things you will likely see ads on websites based on your searches and your permission to share cookies which track your searches. Some search engines are more private and don’t track your searches like DuckDuckGo. Safari has a privacy mode to allow you to visit sites without being tracked. All browsers should be reviewed for their settings/preferences menus to help protect you from malware and viruses. You may want to restrict what is downloaded and what requires your permission. Look at the settings for security and privacy. When considering a browser, keep in mind your needs for: compatibility/stability for websites you visit frequently; speed/performance although with newer computers this is less of a factor; and finally privacy and security. Browser privacy can be restricted to certain sites or downloads that require you specific permission.
Browser extensions are small “apps” that you can add to a browser to make it more useful and to save time. You can find browser extensions for Safari in the Safari Menu.Just click that for the dropdown and select Safari Extensions. Look through them and download ones that can be helpful. They are easy to install and remove. The extension will appear on your browser tab bar as a small icon. Here is a glimpse of mine on Safari (on left) and Chrome (on right). The Elephant head is WebClipper which grabs a webpage and sends it directly to Evernote in a format I choose. The middle one (with chevrons) adds the webpage as a link in ToDoist, the one with the circles opens One Password to use my log on credential when required. The ones in Chrome are similar and are found by clicking on the three vertical dots (upper right corner of window) and then chose Settings, and then look on left sidebar for Extensions. If you hover over these extensions, the name will appear. You can see how useful and time saving thesecan be.
Some popular extensions include: WebClipper, Grammarly, Password Manager, ToDoist, Trello, Pocket, and many more.
Evernote Update on IOS
This is a major update for your Evernote app on mobile devices. Many new features have been added. It will download to your device soon, but if you want it right away goto: https://evernote.com/blog/introducing-new-evernote-ios/ Many long time users ofEvernote had begun to feel that it was dated and not keeping up with innovation and new features. Ian Smith joined the company as CEO not too long ago and has made some enormous strides to make Evernote better with improved performance and stability. His teams have essentially rewritten the software so that all the various platforms (IOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and Web versions) will all have the same look/feel. Before this monumental change, an improvement in one platform required rewriting it across five platforms with the attendant potential for conflicts and errors. Nowwith all versions “speaking the same language” that problem disappeared. Ian has promised we’ll see more major improvements and enhancements in the next few months than we’ve seen in the past five years! Quite a promise. He says he’s looking to bring former users back from Roam, Notion and Bear.
Here are some of the features:
- More control over notes’ appearance by using semantic headers and tables to give notes more structure. Easily change fonts and color.
- Checklists can be indented, list items can be moved around and you can crossthem off with a single tap.
- Add rich content like audio, photos, checkboxes, attachment and sketches with anew, multi-function Insert button.
- The formatting tool bar has been redesigned to put popular options up front. one tap now opens additional options like headers level, highlighter colors, link editing and more.
- Searching is more powerful by combining keywords, tags, and locations to find what you need.
- The main screen is cleaner with a more modern look. The New Note button is multi-function to choose what you need.
- The document scanner automatically recognizes documents, Post-it notes, whiteboard and business cards.
- Evernote has added nested Tags to give you more ways to organize your work.
The web link in this section has a short video going over many of the new features. I think you’ll like this update as Evernote works to make its flagship product more attractive and modern. Note: for those of you with Evernote Personal and Business accounts, you will need to have a separate email and password for each. You’ll see a dialog box pop up when you install this upgrade to take you through this. Evernote will no longer keep personal notes and business notes in the same account. By separating these you can always have your personal files, even if you leave a company.
IOS 14
This is a major update to the operating system for your IOS devices with improvements in security, organizing, widgets, notifications, searches, messages and on and on. Rather than trying to walk through them here are three links to get you started. The one change that I like the most regards security and tracking. Apple gives you options to better protect yourself and your privacy.
https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-14/features/ this is directly from Apple and is a text list of new features.
https://youtu.be/N_kifjcolp8 this is from MacMost (Gary has MANY, quality videos on YouTube for Macs covering numerous topics)
https://youtu.be/1n5PeY5PYEk this is from 9to5Mac and had 540k views in 2 days. It covers the top 10 features selected by the author.
Big Sur, the newest release for MacOS should be out later this fall. It has new features as you would expect and indicates that the MacOS world and IOS platforms move closer together with more sharing of apps across platforms.
Thought for Today – Remember, happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are or what you have, it depends solely upon what you think.
… Dale Carnegie